Channel Catfish - Ictalurus punctatus profile

[exasperatus2002]

I was reading the profile on the channel catfish. I never paid much attention to it previously since it's my favorite freshwater food fish and enjoy summer nights sitting on the bank fishing for them & The brown bullhead, Ameiurus nebulosus. I think the size it attains needs to be updated. I live in Pennsylvania and have caught several channel cats over 36" in ponds locally.

[exasperatus2002]

I was reading the profile on the channel catfish. I never paid much attention to it previously since it's my favorite freshwater food fish and enjoy summer nights sitting on the bank fishing for them & The brown bullhead, Ameiurus nebulosus. I think the size it attains needs to be updated. I live in Pennsylvania and have caught several channel cats over 36" in Lake Nockamixon & also in ponds locally.

[MatsP]

And you have measured the standard length of the fish, not the total length? Standard length means from the tip of the head up to the end of the "meat" on the fish, where total length is to the end of the tail-fin. On a 3 ft fish, this can make quite a bit of difference.

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Mats

[Silurus]

But several sources (Boschung & Mayden: Fishes of Alabama; Ross: Inland Fishes of Mississippi) quote a maximum size of 1.2 m TL for this species. This size comes from Carlander (1969), which is a fisheries report I have no access to, so I cannot ascertain the veracity of this figure.

One way to check would be to examine the IGFA record for this species. But I believe IGFA records weight and not length, so that may not be useful.

1.2 m TL would still be larger than 700 mm SL, though. I estimate the caudal fin to take up about a quarter of the TL, so that would make it about 900 mm SL.

[exasperatus2002]

Mine were all total length since they were destined for the table. There is a catfishing forum that I'm a member of I can try to get them to give sl if possible.

[Jools]

What would be excellent would be a picture of one against a tape measure or similar?

Jools

[Viktor Jarikov]

What would be excellent would be a picture of one against a tape measure or similar?

Hear, hear!

Mine (http://www.planetcatfish.com/forum/view ... 13&t=29628) are now about 25-28" TL. I'd love to have a pic in Cat-eLog with a 3-footer with a ruler next to it.

1.2 m!! Wow, that's 4 feet. Much closer to the 1.7 m max quoted for a blue channel in Cat-eLog.

[Viktor Jarikov]

Cat-eLog indicates channels would hardly grow beyond 27.6". Yet, at some other ernest forums, e.g., aqualand http://aqualandpetsplus.com/Catfish,%20Channel.htm - see e.g., 7th pic down (could be a blue channel, which grow up to 65"??), people speak of 3-4 foot pet channel cats.

[exasperatus2002]

Here is a link to the catfishing forum, theres alot of pics of channels, blues & flatheads here. http://www.brotherhood-of-catfishermen.com/. If its inappropriate to keep the link, pm me for the info.

heres a link to a thread with a 41.5" channel (total length.

http://brotherhood-of-catfishermen.com/ ... 1280861621

[Jools]

Here is a link to the catfishing forum, theres alot of pics of channels, blues & flatheads here. http://www.brotherhood-of-catfishermen.com/. If its inappropriate to keep the link, pm me for the info.

Link is fine, but he pictures you have to register to see...

Kpp;s

[MatsP]

Hey Kpp;s - are your fingers a letter off on the keyboard... ;)

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Mats

[Viktor Jarikov]

save you a step: here are the photos of the 41.5" one Exasperatus found. What a catch!

[Jools]

Kpp;s

DOH!

Jools

[Jools]

Well, that looks like a channel catfish and conservatively I'd put it at 32-36". Any chance we could use the (full size) pic as a back up to increasing the size?

Jools